


stay with me, go places

by gribbins



Category: McElroy Vlogs & Podcasts RPF
Genre: M/M, Mental Health Issues, Road Trips, The Great American Roadtrip
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-11
Updated: 2017-08-05
Packaged: 2018-11-13 00:42:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11173416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gribbins/pseuds/gribbins
Summary: Nick ends the call, runs his hands through his hair, and twitches his fingers. He wants to do something extreme. Wants to run away. Wants to kiss Griffin. Wants to shave off his hair just to watch it grow back, to watch something about his appearance change. He wants to do something stupid and reckless and unnecessary.He wants to drive.Or: On being older, on not being who you want to be, on being in love with your best friend, and the great American Road trip.UNFINISHED AND WILL NEVER BE FINISHED





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As always, this is fiction based on my perception of real people, i in no way think this happened or anything similar to this, nor do i think my perceptions of nick and griffin are what they're even like irl. it's just a thing i wrote. 
> 
> if you know anyone in this fic, or are in this fic, please turn away here, im embarrassed even thinking about it.

It’s a wednesday when Nick begs off work, and jumps in his car, with a half packed suitcase thrown in the backseat. He tells Griffin first, kind of, halfway into recording a new Cool Games Inc. when he suddenly becomes unable to make jokes anymore, as if he isn’t falling apart at the seams.

Griffin is still talking about some stupid tweet that he had got, and normally Nick would love this, would take an inch and run for a mile, but today he just can’t.

“Uh, sorry Griffin, can we stop recording?” He exits out of the program, doesn’t bother to save what he’s already got. He doesn’t want to finish this episode, let it be a lost episode to the ages. He doesn’t even know what they’ve been talking about. 

“What’s up, dude” and Griffin sounds concerned, which is not what Nick wanted but it feels good. It feels nice to be cared for. 

“I think I just” Nick pauses, thinks it over “gotta go right now, y’know?” 

“I uh. I don’t think I know? Can I help? Do you need to talk about stuff, Nicolas?”, and he draws out the fucking ‘i’, in a way that normally would make Nick laugh, but right now it just makes him want to scream, or cry, or both.

“Nah, I just, I need to go right now. I’ll get back to you about finishing the episode okay?” 

“Uh, sure buddy. See you I guess?”  

“Yeah dude, see you!” Nick ends the call, runs his hands through his hair, and twitches his fingers. He wants to do something extreme. Wants to run away. Wants to kiss Griffin. Wants to shave off his hair just to watch it grow back, to watch something about his appearance change. He wants to do something stupid and reckless and unnecessary.

He wants to drive. 

He calls Polygon HR, tells them he’ll be off for two week, that it’s absolutely urgent, that he’s having a mental breakdown. He gets his break.

He feels weirdly free.

Nick digs the suitcase out from under his bad, packs a few pairs of pants, some underwear, a few shirts, toothbrush, toothpaste, and deodorant. He doesn’t want to think it out, doesn’t want to pack carefully, he just wants to leave.

So he does.

 

**twenty griffinteen** @griffinmcelroy - [3h](https://twitter.com/griffinmcelroy/status/873323401062092800)

No new Cool Games Inc. or Touch The Skyrim for a lil while, folks!

 

**Nick Robinson** @babylonian - 2h  
[pic.twitter.com/BfijNaE4al](https://t.co/BfijNaE4al) 

 

Nick always thought that by this point in his life, he’d like who he was, like his life a lot more than he did. It’s not that he doesn’t love Polygon, doesn’t love talking about games, doesn’t like all the stupid jokes he gets to make with his friends for a living. 

His job is perfect. His friends are as close to perfect as they can get. 

It’s just him. 

There’s something in him that just feels wrong, like his skin is stretched too tight over his skin. Weed helps, and alcohol, but he’s kind of sick of spending the day wasted. He mostly just wants to sleep through things, feels like he can’t stop overthinking every little thing in his life, he can’t make a joke without wondering if he sounds stupid, wondering if everyone else merely tolerates him. 

San Francisco feels lonely.

It’s not that Nick’s alone. He has lots of friends in San Francisco, people he really likes, people he hangs out with, and he loves living there, but sometimes he thinks about the easy friendship with Polygon and he just thinks about how much easier it is, how much more fun he has, and something just feels wrong.

It’s Griffin as well.

Nick thinks he’s been at least a little bit in love with Griffin since he first heard the podcast, since he heard his goofy voice. He liked him even when he had his shitty moustache, even when he was young and angry and stupid.

And now he’s a bit calmer, and still angry and stupid, but he’s so much more real than he was on the podcast.  

Nick supposes it’s like celebrities, they’re never how they present themselves. Griffin is both softer and harder out of a work schedule, realer than he is when performing. He’s kinder, sweeter, and more protective than Nick thought he’d be. He loves so much easier than Nick ever has.

Nick doesn’t know how he was supposed to not fall in love, and most of the time it’s fine. 

But right now is not most of the time. 

 

He likes the noise of cars, likes the gentle hum and vibration in the seat, likes the sensation of being enclosed. Likes knowing he could go anywhere. 

Sometimes he wonders why he’s never done a proper road trip before. Work he supposed, work and life, and grocery store trips, and the easy to-and-fro of life. It’s easier to get into a routine, easier to live his life if he doesn’t think too much about how much he has no clue what he’s doing. 

He knows that no one really knows what they’re doing, but he’s sure he has even less of a clue than most people. His job didn’t even exist when he was younger, and he gets paid to goof around with the people he loves most. 

It’s astounding.

He tries not to think about it, switches his music over from playing stuff off his phone to some indie radio station just for a change of pace. He doesn’t normally listen to this, but it’s good for driving. There are soft guitar chords, and a woman’s voice singing about something or other.

Driving in California is weird, the way the roads all stretch out, they feel impossibly long and like you’re treading the same ground again and again, watching as the small towns blur together. The rows and rows of cars, and the way the summer heat makes itself known. Everything is the same, but slightly different, and he finds himself searching for oddities to make the drive more interesting. 

Nick’s been driving for about 4 hours when he sees the first sign for the ostrich farm.

What the hell, he thinks, bemused. He’s never seen an ostrich before.

 

**Nick Robinson** @babylonian - 2h   
wow it turns out i don’t like ostriches 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As always, this is fiction based on my perception of real people, i in no way think this happened or anything similar to this, nor do i think my perceptions of nick and griffin are what they're even like irl. it's just a thing i wrote.
> 
> if you know anyone in this fic, or are in this fic, please turn away here, im embarrassed even thinking about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All places in this fic are real places you could visit if you wanted! 
> 
> hmu on tumblr at thegribbenings, and on twitter @thegribbening where i hold serious scientific discussions on which word is better, come or cum.

Nick gets a motel in Tehachapi, nearby the ostrich farm. The people are friendly enough when he says he wants to stay there one or two nights, says they do payments day by day. It feels like something out of the 50s, all gingham curtains and shitty old box tv. It’s miles away from the tech Nick normally spends his time around.

He plugs his phone in, grabs his laptop out of his bag. There’s a message from Griffin, that’s just ‘???’ Nick closes his laptop, lies back on his bed, and stares at the ceiling. It’s about 5 pm, and normally with this time to waste, he’d play a video game but he doesn’t want that today.

Instead, he gets out and walks around Tehachapi, looking at the houses that make up all of California suburbia, at the dusty roads and the trees. California has a dry heat, with little humidity, it makes it more tolerable to Nick.

It’s slightly more humid in Austin but not by much. It’s liveable, switching from one to the other, both ways.

Nick forces the thought from his mind, and tries to focus on the dry grass of the football field that makes up the local park. There’s a dog running around and Nick absently thinks that maybe he’d be happier if he had a dog. Maybe that’s adulthood, just finding small things to keep the sadness at bay

He could adopt a mutt he guesses. Or get some fancy designer breed. That seems more on brand really. He could take millions of photographs of it and be the hypocrite he always has been.

He feels like he’s not even mature enough to take care of himself, never mind a dog.

Nick takes an exit out of the park, deciding to seek food instead of continuing to follow this depressing line of thought of his adult inadequacy.

Eventually he finds a nice looking Japanese restaurant, and manages to get some curry that’s decent for the small town he’s in. The people in the restaurant are friendly, and it’s filled with locals. Nick feels like he’s on one of those stupid cooking shows where people travel the country looking for food, while saying stupid things and looking like an idiot. Except he’s just wandering California looking like an idiot.

 **Nick Robinson** @babylonian - 3m  
Their Finest Zookeeper's Wife Norman [pic.twitter.com/16nCHJyQB8](http://pic.twitter.com/16nCHJyQB8)

On the way back to the motel he takes a picture of a theatre sign, something to confirm he’s still alive. He still won’t text Griffin back, but he knows he’ll see it.

The motel is much the same as it was when he left it, but the bed is comfortably soft when he lies down on it, and allows his mind to wander once again to thoughts of Griffin.

Nick’s attraction to Griffin is unlike how he usually experiences attraction. It normally comes at him sideways when he’s getting to know a person, the occasional flash of desire that makes him wonder what could be. He tends more towards sharp angles and fashionable aesthetics but Griffin breaks his normal rules.

He’d already been halfway in love with Griffin for years, just based on what he saw of him from afar, but it was so much more intoxicating once whe knew Griffin. Once he got to see Griffin calmer, and more thoughtful, and so much more than he knew of him.

It’s weird, when Griffin looks so much like a dad, almost like the base setting of man on a video game. But when he talks and he lights up, Nick is most attracted to him. Watching Griffin just exist is enough to melt Nick. Nick is attracted to all of Griffin, especially his softness, and sometimes when he spends time with him he just wants to press all of himself into him, wants to feel every inch of Griffin’s soft skin against him, wants to kiss every inch of him.

Wants to nestle his face in his thighs and just go to fucking town.

His face heats up just thinking about it. He normally wouldn’t care, but he feels so guilty when it’s Griffin. Griffin who is one of his closest friends, and who has made every part of Nick’s life better simply by being a part of it. It almost feels like a betrayal to think like this about him.

But once he’s started he can’t stop thinking about it. He wants to hear the noises he can wring out of Griffin, wants to know every inch of him better than he knows his own body, wants to know intimately how to make Griffin feel good.

Wants to get on his knees for him and beg.

It’s embarrassing to be so in love with someone. It’s embarassing to be masturbating alone in a motel room to the thought of sucking your coworker’s cock.

It’s what Nick does anyway.

He falls to sleep uneasy

 **twenty griffinteen** @griffinmcelroy - 3h  
i think i’ve listened to this song, oh, two hundred times in the last week? it’s unbelievably chill and good <http://bit.ly/2cC3Xrv>

When Nick wakes up in the morning, he feels a little sick. He knows it’s okay to be attracted to his friends, but he feels guilty for thinking about Griffin that way, feels like he’s corrupting their friendship. He has no clue how Griffin would react if Nick told him he was in love with him, but he doesn’t think it would be a simple “cool, feel free to fantasize about me as much as you want.”

He chews one of the cereal bars he packed in his bag lethargically while checking his twitter notifications, and favoriting Giffin’s link to some song he’s been listening to, thinking that he might listen to it in the car today.

He googles for stuff around him that might be interesting and finds a crater formed by a volcanic explosion about two hours away. That might be alright.

It’s 8 AM when he checks out of the motel. He’s got a lot of driving to do.


	3. Chapter 3

The drive to the Pigsah Crater is only two hours, but Nick feels jolty and uncomfortable, cramped in the small spaces of his car. He’s grateful when he steps out at Pigsah. It’s still hot, it’s a California summer, of course it’s hot, but it’s stuffier in the car, and the small wind makes Nick feel calmer.

Seeing the dark rocks built up from sulfur and magma makes him feel small and insignificant. There’s something about seeing how the world changes itself without his input. Nick scrambles across rock and stone ducks into caves and climbs up peaks. He sees the crater from every angle, runs around until he’s bored of the rocks, until he’s back in his skin and he feels like he can drive again. There are a couple other tourists running around, mostly families, and he gets a middle aged mom to take his picture while he crouches on the rocks. She pinches his cheeks and calls him a sweetheart when he compliments her hat out of nervousness. The picture comes out nicely, and he posts it on Instagram, another small update, another reassurance that he’s not dead.

Then suddenly, his phone buzzes. It’s Griffin. Nick stares at his phone, feels the phone vibrate in his hand. His phone rings the boring automatic tone he could never be bothered to chance. And then his fingers move without permission and they slide across to answer, and he cautiously puts his phone to his ear.

“Hello?”

“Oh my god, Nick, what the fuck, where are you, are you okay?” Griffin takes a breath, pauses for a second and Nick thinks he’s being given a chance to defend himself but then he starts all over again. “Jesus fuck, everyone's worried sick, I’m worried sick.” He sounds worried, and Nick has no clue how to answer him.He pauses, breathes over the line, tries to put his words in the right order.

“Uh. Yeah, I’m like - on a volcano or something? I don’t really know, it’s cool, it’s like all these craters and stuff.” It’s painfully awkward.

“What? Why?” 

“It looked cool, I guess? I’m like, on a road trip I guess. I just” He can’t put his words together right, he takes a deep breath, tries to think of the way he felt when he first got on the road. Free and clean, and like he didn’t have to worry, at least for a little while. “I’m trying to get my head back together. I got all muddled and trapped and I just - I needed to get away. I still feel all weird but it’s easier out here. I can think again, you know?”

Griffin hums over the line, he seems less panicked now, and more understanding. His voice is scratchy over the phone.

“I get that dude. I do. But uh, we worry worry about you, we love you. Hell, I love you. I wanna make sure you’re okay. Can you maybe try to text me every so often, just so I know you’re doing okay?”

“Yeah, I’ll try. I love you too dude.” He panics, Griffin probably can hear how stupidly in love with him Nick is. “I love all of you.”

“I know. I’ll talk to you soon, yeah?”

“Yeah. Bye Griffin.”

“Bye Nick.”

The line crackles dead, and Nick pulls his phone from his ear, drops it in his pocket, before running his hand through his hair in a nervous gesture he’s been trying to shake for years. He hopes Griffin couldn’t see through him too much, couldn’t hear the adoration in his voice, or the way he constantly feels five seconds from falling apart. Suddenly he feels sick to his stomach, and his skin feels too tight again.

Suddenly he can’t stay there another second. He can’t look at the craters for a single moment more, and he knows he has to get back in the car.

Nick drives through small town after small town, stopping at one to fill up his tank and to buy some fruit for the drive, mostly berries, things he normally doesn’t buy himself. He tries to eat fruit a lot lately, it feels healthier, but berries are indulgences he doesn’t have much. He buys shitty gas station coffee as well. 

He’s listening to the radio again, listening to something with strings and electronic beats. It feels like something Griffin would like, or maybe he does like it, maybe Nick’s remembering this from some tweet or late night conversation. Nick likes it well enough, it’s not something he would normally listen to, but he likes it now, on this dusty road, and he finds himself tapping the driving wheel in time with the beat.

Nick still doesn’t really know where he’s going, beyond away, beyond needing to get as far away as possible from who and where he usually is. He’s mostly following roadside signs for small town attractions, things he normally wouldn’t care about. He looks for things that make him laugh, or things he thinks will make people laugh when he tells this story later, the story of how he ran away for a week and left it all behind. Nick likes to think of it as a story for parties, for introducing himself to strangers.

‘Hi, I’m Nick and one day I skipped out on work and drove away to an ostrich farm.’

‘My name’s Nick and I abandoned my job that makes me extremely happy so I can run away from myself.’

‘I’m Nick and I was so in love with my colleague and close friend that I ran away from home like a fucking child’

It’s less funny when he says it like that. More embarrassingly tragic.

He switches the radio off for a second, before he gets bored of the silence and instead switches it to his Spotify, putting on some old album he hasn’t listened to in a few years. He needs something familiar to calm him down.

It’s hardly been any time but it feels like he’s been driving for hours and it feels all the same, all identical roads and identical towns. He wonders about the people in them. They must all do crazy things like this too. Must go out of their minds and scream and shout and fall in and out of love. There are so many people, and all of what Nick is feeling has been felt before, and at the same time none of it has.

There’s a sign for a Joshua Tree National Park on his left and Nick decides to follow it. He likes Joshua Trees, he never saw them before he moved to California. But he loves their odd twists and turns, and the way they look like something out of a Dr. Seuss book. He thinks Griffin would be amused that that's the one reference he knows. He feels like Griffin would be amused at most of this.

He wants to tell him everything, but at the same time, he wants to tell him nothing.

He keeps driving.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow that took ages, sorry i'm like this folks, but good to be back after a million years. 
> 
> as always, fictional characters based on real life people
> 
> if u are anyone whose names rhyme with miffin grecelroy or rick mobinson, stop googling urselves and why the fuck do you have ao3 accounts. if you know these people please also turn away from this.
> 
> we good?

It’s around 1 in the afternoon when Nick realizes how hungry he is. He’s been eating fruit on and off, but after running around at the crater, he’s going to need something more filling. There’s a turn off for a McDonald's. He could do with a chicken burger.

He eats in his car because he can’t stand to sit inside, and looks up the park on his phone for something to do. It looks huge, and beautiful, and Nick realizes that he could camp there if he wanted, and that there’s even a camping store nearby where he could rent a tent, and suddenly he can’t get the thought out of his head, and he knows he’s going to do it. He finishes his burger and throws away the trash in a helpfully provided trash can, and heads out again.

The drive feels shorter when he knows where he’s going, when he’s not just following any old road down to tiny towns. The car smells of grease, but Nick opens the window, and resists his urge to stick his out of the window. His parents used to joke he was part dog with all the times he did that as a kid, and then his dad told him he’d get his head chopped off if he kept doing it. Leaving the window open still makes him anxious as an adult. Nick wonders if he’ll ever stop being scared of all those stupid things you develop fears of during a lifetime or if he’ll just stay like this for the rest of his life, cautiously avoiding things for half remembered reasons. He stops at the camping store and rents his supplies, and when the lady at the counter tells him to camp at the Black Rock Campground if he’s a beginner, he thanks her genuinely. 

Nick barely knows a thing about camping. He can set up a tent from being at festivals, and he remembers one or two times as a kid, taking care of his brothers while they went camping with close family friends. Someone gutted a fish and Nick remembers feelings disgusted and refusing to eat the fish, remembers the sick squelching noise of the guts being removed. He still feels slightly queasy whenever he sees fresh fish at a market stall or grocery store, not that it stops him from eating salmon. Camping feels like something for rugged manly men, the kind he’s always been awful at being or relating to. He likes nature, but the second he sees a bug he jumps a foot in the air. This is probably a stupid idea but Nick wants to do it anyway. Knowing something is stupid but doing it anyway is kind of Nick’s speciality.

Joshua Tree National Park is huge, and beautiful, in a way. It’s desert, complete with long stretches of rock and that orange yellow dust no artist could really capture, and it strikes Nick how alone he feels. The park feels desolate, huge and empty, and while he knows there are people who work here, who spend time here, who sleep and eat, and make their lives in and around this park, it still feels alien and lonely to be so alone. It’s off season, and a weekday, so he doubts that anyone else will even be camping there, the person at the desk seemed surprised to see him at all. Nick’s only staying one night, but that feels enough. 

He takes most of the day driving around, and wandering around, seeing the occasional animal race past him, and kicking up dust. The Joshua trees are just as oddly shaped as he remembers them being, stretching up towards the sky with odd arms and spikes, he takes a picture and texts it to Simone, and gets a quick ‘me too’ response, that suggests she’s busy but wants to make sure he knows she cares, at least a little bit.

In the end he parks at the beginning of a nature trail, and walks slowly through the park. Normally if Nick has to walk anywhere he puts in his earphones, listens to music, but today he just wants to hear the sound of his feet hitting the gravel, and the noise of the various animals making their way around the park. The path is good, and it feels nice to stretch his legs after being in his car, feels nice to be so disconnected from his usual life. Sometimes he doesn’t leave the house for days because he gets so focused on work, so to not be home for this long and to not be doing work makes him feel almost guilty. The sky is so blue out here and it aches deep in his chest.

He used to wander a lot when he was a teen, needing a space away from the people he knew and his family, who, as much as he loves them, could sometimes be overbearing. Nick wonders if his teenage self would like who he was today, and if he even wants that approval. It feels so long ago.

He bets high school feels even longer ago for Griffin. It feels stupid, but his brain drifts to Griffin so naturally it’s almost hard to believe. Nick supposes it must be a by-product of Griffin being a vague part of his life since college, first in podcast form and now in colleague form. It’s been a long time since Griffin wasn’t a part of his life, and he thinks about him more than he’d like to think. 

Nick keeps wandering until he comes across Skull Rock, the entire reason he walked this nature trail. It doesn’t even looks that much like a skull but he likes it anyway. He quickly snaps a picture and sends it to Pat, along with a ‘does this look like a skull to you?’. Pat doesn’t reply but there’s a time difference between them, and Nick barely knows what that might mean for Pat, but he uses it as an excuse often enough that Nick doesn’t question it anymore. He doesn’t really need instant responses anyway. He felt guilty after talking to Griffin, wanted to send a few more texts out, let more people know he wasn’t dead or dying in a ditch. It feels weird to know that he could die out here and it would be hard for people to figure out what happened to him. It’s hard to think about a world without him. His brain naturally rejects it, and he moves on, keeps walking, until he reaches his car again. It’s about 5 pm now and he figures he should probably set up his campground, and eat the salad he bought himself for dinner. So he moves on, only slightly missing the crunch of dirt underneath his foot for the time he spends in the car.

The park is beautiful at night. The sky is deeper than he’s ever seen, and he can see so many more stars than he ever thought possible. It’s empty at the camp ground, and he sits at the edge of his tent, listening to the coyotes howl and sing in the distance.

Nick doesn’t think too many people get nights like this. He breathes in the cold night air, takes one last look at the endless sky, and goes to bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, catch me at thegribbening on twitter, and thegribbenings on tumblr. i'm up for prompts and writing stuff, and getting messages from y'all makes my day.
> 
> i'm sorry this took so long, depression has been kicking my ass. but i love y'all to bits and i hope you know that.
> 
> i've never been to joshua tree national park but it looks beautiful.
> 
> most of this was written to lonely (but not alone) by rob cantor.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i love you all but this is never ending and i hope if this fic ever made you happy that that joy is not tainted but. im never gonna finish this. this is what i had planned of an ending. it wasn't finsihed but this will never be finished now.
> 
> i love you and im sorry

“Hey” says Nick, from where he stands on Griffin’s porch. Griffin is sleep soft, still in pyjamas, and he smiles at him even though he looks horribly confused. 

“Hey duder. D’you wanna come in? And tell me what’s been going on?” Nick nods, lets himself follow Griffin into the kitchen, where he makes them both coffee and sits Nick down at the breakfast table, before loudly sighing over his coffee. Nick looks down, and starts fiddling with a hangnail on his thumb.

“So.”

“So. 

“I uh, I don’t think I ever learnt how to deal with growing up, and being an adult, and having a life.” Griffin opens his mouth as if to interrupt Nick, but Nick presses on. “And like bit by bit all the routines were just making me feel worse and worse, and I never learned to have close friends, and then there was you-” Nick can feel himself trip up over his words, feels himself not make sense.

“Me?” Griffin looks confused, and sad, and like he so desperately wants to help and Nick aches. “How about we go about this chronologically then? So like, start with a week ago. What happened when we were recording?” Griffin makes far too much sense.

“I heard you talking, and I was in love with you, and I couldn’t deal with it anymore.” Griffin’s eyes are very wide. “It’s not a big deal, it’s just like, a thing. Don’t like - don’t worry about it.”

“I’m. I’m gonna need the rest of the story I think.”

And so Nick tells him. He tells him about the days in Death Valley, in the National Park, the time he spent in nature thinking about how horrendously beautiful it was, and how ridiculous it was that he got to see it, to live in it, and that instead mankind moved to disgusting cities and away from all this. Nick tells him about Indian Point Ostrich Farm, on feeling an Ostriches stupid beak in his hand. 

And how throughout all of it, all of his thoughts went back to Griffin. How much he wanted to tell Griffin about all of this. How much he wished Griffin were here. How much he wanted him.

And here Griffin blushes bright red, looks down at the table, and nervously covers Nick’s hand with his own. Nick still doesn’t know exactly how he feels, but he’s pretty sure nothing’s made him as happy as that in a long while. Maybe that’s enough.

Griffin takes a sip of his coffee, and smiles over the table at Nick.

“I was so worried about you, you know.” Griffin looks serious now. “Like, who does something like this? I didn’t know how to process it. One second we were recording, and it seemed like everything was fine, and the next you were gone. I was calling everyone, trying to figure out what was going on, where you were going. You were so quiet at first. We were all so worried”

“I’m sorry” Nick is, actually. The journey may have been important and necessary but it was also crazy and worrying and dangerous. He can recognize that he needed to get away but also, maybe he should’ve been better about keeping in touch, about letting the people he loved know what he was doing. 

“It’s okay, I get it now. I didn’t for a while but I do now. But anyway, I was so worried and at one point I remember wondering if I would be as out of my mind if it wasn’t you. And I didn’t think I would be. And it hit me all at once that I felt so much more for you than I thought I did. So, I think I’m gonna have to make a big deal out of you loving me, maybe. It feels like a thing I wanna explore further.” Nick’s smile is overtaking his face now. “Do you wanna go get breakfast?”

“Only if it’s a date” Nick says, joking, but also kind of not, he wants to push this, wants to see if Griffin wants what he wants.

“Yeah, bud. Of course it’s a date.” 

Nick gets up, walks around to the other side of the table, and kisses Griffin. His back is at an awkward angle from him standing up and Griffin still sitting, they both taste like coffee, and Nick has no clue what to do with his hands. It’s still good. 

And for the first time in a long time, Nick doesn’t want to run away.

**Author's Note:**

> I was last in California when I was 14 and as such, can't actually comment much on what it's like. 
> 
> Indian Point Ostrich ranch is indeed a real place, but sadly they no longer do tours of their farm. I've been told they let you feed the ostriches. I'm going to be honest and say that's my worst nightmare.
> 
> This fic is entirely written to a soundtrack of my roadtrip playlist - which can be listened to here http://spoti.fi/2r8WyoY
> 
> As always, find me on tumblr at thegribbenings , or on twitter @thegribbening, where i am far more active.


End file.
